Martin O`Malley on Crime

Democrat

First state in the south to repeal death penalty

I repealed as a crime and decriminalized the possession of marijuana. I banned the box on people who are applying for state employment. And not the first time, not the second time, but the third time,
by bringing people together, including a few Republican votes, I made my state the first state south of the Mason Dixon Line to repeal the death penalty in America.

Policing the police: more transparency on use of force

There is no issue that I have worked on more than this painful issue of policing law enforcement. When I ran for mayor of Baltimore, our city had become the most violent and abandoned in America. I brought people together, and we were able to put our
city on the path for the biggest reduction in crime of any major city. There wasn't a single day that I wasn't asked whether I was delivering on the promise I made to police the police. We reported excessive force, discourtesy, use of lethal force.

My zero-tolerance policy didn't cause Baltimore riots

Q: Baltimore exploded in riots and violence in April. The current top prosecutor blames your zero tolerance policies for sowing the seeds of unrest.

O'MALLEY: I believe what she said was that there's a lot of policies that have led to this unrest.

Q:
When she was asked which policies, she named zero tolerance.

O'MALLEY: Arrests had actually fallen to a 38-year low in the year prior to the tragic death of Freddie Gray [whom the Baltimore police arrested for carrying a switchblade; Gray was killed
violent, addicted, and abandoned city in America. And we put our city on a path to reduce violent crime. We've saved over 1,000 lives in Baltimore in the last 15 years of people working together. And the vast majority of them were young & poor & black.

Black Lives Matter, like in Baltimore

The Black Lives Matter movement is making is a serious point, and that is we have undervalued black lives. When I ran for Mayor of Baltimore, and we were burying over 350 young men every year, most young, and poor, and black, I said that if we were
burying white, young, poor men in these numbers, we would be marching in the streets and there would be a different reaction. Black lives matter, and we have a lot of work to do to reform our criminal justice system, and to address race relations.

I was re-elected as Baltimore mayor because I made progress

Q: Many critics claim your tenure as mayor of Baltimore did more harm than good, despite the drop in crime statistics.

O`MALLEY: It's interesting, isn't it? For all of the progress that we make, there's always so much more that needs to be done.
When I was elected in 1999, our city had become the most violent, addicted, and abandoned city in the US. But we went on in the next ten years to achieve the biggest crime reduction of any American city.
And now, Baltimore's population is growing again with greater numbers of young people moving back here. Sadly it's also true that we still have huge pockets of poverty in our city; and the anger that erupted in our city did so in some of the poorest,
hardest hit neighborhoods. But still, I would not have been elected with 91% of the vote first time or reelected four years later with 88% of the vote if we were not making substantial progress.

Baltimore riot due to hopelessness, not just race & policing

Last month, television sets around the world were filled with the anger and the rage, and the flames of some of the humblest and hardest hit neighborhoods of Baltimore. For all of us who have given so much of our energies to making our city a safer,
fairer, more just and more prosperous place, it was a heartbreaking night in the life of our City.

But there is something to be learned from that night, and there is something to be offered to our country from those flames. For what took place here was
not only about race... not only about policing in America.

It's about everything it is supposed to mean to be an American. The scourge of hopelessness that happened to ignite here that evening, transcends race or geography.

The hard truth of our
shared reality is this: Unemployment in many American cities and in many small towns across the United States is higher now than it was eight years ago. Conditions of extreme and growing poverty, create conditions for extreme violence.

Abolish the death penalty: we're one of the last refuges

The majority of public executions now take place in just seven countries: Iran, Iraq, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United States of America. Our home is one of the last refuges of the death penalty.

Our nation was not founded on
fear, or on revenge, or on retribution. Freedom, justice, equal rights before the law, and a fierce belief in the dignity of every human being--these are the foundational notions of what it means to be American. Our values are our treasures,
and the death penalty is incompatible with them.

Nevertheless, advocates of the death penalty will argue that the death penalty is firmly rooted in our legal tradition, extending to its roots in England. But just as our notions on equality and
civil liberties have rightfully changed since the early days of the republic, it is time to reconsider the place of the death penalty in our criminal justice system--and whether we should, as a nation, replace the death penalty with life without parole.

I reduced both violent crime and incarceration rates

O'MALLEY: In Maryland, we actually were able to reduce our incarceration rate to 20-year lows. We were able to reduce our recidivism by 15%. And we also, at the same time, reduced violent crime down to 35-year lows. I signed legislation to decriminalize,
in essence, marijuana possession and other minor charges. I signed legislation to restore voting rights. We are getting smarter and better every day at this, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Repealed death penalty; reduced prison incarceration

Today, with courageous law enforcement officers, we have now reduced violent crime to 30 year lows. With our first responders, shock trauma doctors and nurses, traffic deaths have been reduced now to the lowest levels in decades.

We enacted common
sense measures to reduce gun violence. We repealed the death penalty and replaced it with life without the possibility of parole. And there are now fewer people incarcerated in Maryland's prisons today than at any time since 1994.

Source: 2014 State of the State Address to Maryland legislature
, Jan 23, 2014

Root out prison gangs and prison guard corruption

Governor Martin O'Malley today announced a plan that will combat gangs and root out corruption at all Maryland prisons:

"I am outraged by the criminal wrongdoing at the Baltimore City Detention Center. Since taking office, the Administration is taking
action to purge corrupt correctional officers. The average annual number of correctional officers terminated during the O'Malley Administration is nearly 50% higher than under the previous administration.

In 2011, officials formed the Maryland Joint
Prison Task Force, focused on combating gangs and rooting out corruption in Maryland correctional institutions. In 2012, DPSCS captured 77% more cell phones than it did in 2007 through the use of K9s and other strategies, and invested in a cellular
forensics lab to extract intelligence from contraband phones. Since 2007, serious assaults have been driven down 65%. Since 2009, DPSCS has employed a full-time gang intelligence analyst to track gang activity.

Repeal the death penalty: it does not work

To govern is to choose. In Maryland, we understand the things that actually work to reduce violent crime: more effective policing, better technology, and smarter strategies. Entrepreneurial, collaborative, relentlessly interactive strategies:
Strategies like establishing the Maryland Center for School Safety. Strategies that have enabled us to drive down violent crime and homicide in our State to three decade lows.

We also have a moral responsibility to stop doing the things that are wasteful, and that are expensive, and that do not work.
Therefore, we are signing into law today a repeal on the death penalty in Maryland.

Additional funding to hire correctional and police officers

I ask for your support this year for an additional $7 million dollars in this year’s budget to fund 155 additional correctional officers. I also ask for your support for $2 million additional dollars to protect Maryland families from sexual predators,
with advanced Global Positioning Systems that track offenders and give law enforcement, as well as families, a heads up to protect their own children. I ask for your support also for an additional $500,000 for the Maryland State Police.